President Donald Trump began his second term with a big difference compared to his first mandate: surveys regularly showed that most Americans approved their immigration management. In fact, it was his best problem, while he had been one of the least popular before.
Six months after his second term, he is still among his best problems, but he is no longer so popular. There has been a clear decrease in support for Trump’s immigration management, with its approval index in a handful of prominent surveys.
The trend reflects the offspring in its general approval index, since the administration has followed an aggressive ensemble of policies that results in many arrests, but slow progress in the deportations of undocumented immigrants known condemned for important crimes, as well as controversial confrontations for deportations.
While Trump still obtains good grades in some details, including border security, many of its most aggressive specific immigration policies do not probe well, even while continuing to follow immigration as a signatory problem.
The surveys continue to show that immigration remains among Trump’s most popular problems. But the trend is clear. While most Trump voters remain satisfied with their immigration management and other problems, some have told NBC News who disagree with their focus.
“On the one hand, I think it is immoral,” said Jorge, 21, Independiente de Florida who voted for Trump last year, in an interview with a follow -up of his answers in a previous survey.
He criticized the Trump administration for not “taking the time to separate people who do not need to be here, who are criminals, illegal criminals and migrants, and separate from workers who benefit our society,” said Jorge, who refused to share his last name while discussing national policy. “It’s disappointing … He thinks he can take everyone.”
Within the data
In a survey after survey in his first weeks in office, Trump’s approval index on immigration regularly eclipsed 50%.
Fifty -six percent of registered voters approved their immigration management in a survey of the end of January as part of the “Track Track” of Morning Consult, which includes its approval index in a series of topics. Other surveys found similar results: 51% of American citizens approved in an economist/yougov survey in mid -February, 54% of adults approved at the end of February CBS/Yougov Poll and 51% of adults approved in a CNN survey in early March.
But in each of those surveys, there has been a clear downward trend as more Americans are grouped in the management of Trump about that big problem. Part of the movement is within the margins of error of the surveys, but in general, they constantly show a measure of decrease.
In the survey of mid -July of CNN, only 42% of adults approved the management of Trump’s immigration, while 45% of adults said the same in a survey of economists/Yougov in early July, as well as 41% at the end of June of the Quinnipiac University Survey.
While by little half or even more the management of Trump was approved on the problem in the most recent morning consultation (51%) and the CBS/Yougov (50%) surveys since mid -July and late June, respectively, months of surveys by both found the same tendency of slightly diminished classifications in immigration.
The Fox News survey, however, has not changed much. Fox News tested Trump’s approval index on immigration three times, finding it at 47% in April, 46% in June and 48% in July.
That said, the landscape is still complicated, especially from a partisan political perspective. When Fox News asked this month which game does a better work in immigration, Republicans had an advantage of 6 points (52%-46%).
While that is less than the two -digit republican advantage that the survey found in 2022 and 2023, the Democrats had the advantage when Fox tried the question during the first three years of Trump’s first mandate.
What has caused public reaction
A possible reason why Trump’s broader numbers on immigration have fallen could be in the policies of the administration itself. Even when Trump’s numbers on the subject were higher, the hardest parts of their immigration policy, which the administration has announced in recent months, have always surveyed worse than their general numbers on the subject.
Then, once Trump began acting with these policies, they led the news coverage and administration’s perceptions.
The Wall Street Journal survey conducted in mid -January, before Trump returned to office, provides a clear example of the pre -adration warning signs on a topic that was once a strength.
Almost three quarters of the registered voters (74%) said they supported the arrest and deporting only undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of crimes. It was the second most popular immigration proposal proven, behind the creation of a path to citizens for “undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for many years and approved a background verification”, which 79% supported.
The majority of registered voters also favored the increase in the level of legal immigration and the number of H1-B visas available for highly qualified workers.
The public was closely in favor of a plan to “stop and deport millions of undocumented immigrants” (52% in favor); Note that companies could face the shortage of workers due to the plan made it a little less popular. A majority (53%) also supported the construction of a wall along the Mexican border.
On the contrary, only 38% favored a plan to stop and deport undocumented immigrants with American citizen children, 31% favored a call to end the citizenship of birth law and 26% favored deporting “undocumented immigrants even if they have lived in the US.
Fox News found something similar when he surveyed voters’ opinions about illegal immigration shortly before Trump returned to the position of July. On both occasions, 59% said their views were closer to “deporting only those illegal immigrants who have been accused of crimes but allow others to remain in the United States and eventually qualify for citizenship.” Twenty -nine percent said they supported all illegal immigrants, and 11% supported allowing everyone to remain in the country.
In other words, there is a broader support for the general promises of deportations or plans focused on eliminating criminals than support to specifically deport people who have not committed crimes out of coming to the United States or people who have American citizen children.
Other more recent surveys have reflected those findings.
A May NPR/Ipsos survey on immigration found almost higher support (48%) to “quickly deport alleged gang members under the alien enemies law of 1798”, and pluralities also supported a border wall and allowed the local police to stop immigrants without legal status.
But a majority of majority, 46%, backed, giving “legal status to immigrants without legal status brought to the US. And the public was almost uniformly divided into support of the “mass deportation of all those in the country without legal status.”
This week, the Wall Street Journal survey found the voters registered near the approval evenly in their approval of Trump’s immigration management (48% approved, 51% disapproved) and with similar grades for their management of illegal immigration specifically (51% approved, 49% approved. But as in many other recent surveys, some specific pieces of the policy survey of the policy survey administration better than others.
The sixty -two percent approves “deportation of undocumented immigrants”, while 36% oppose.
But 58% oppose people “who believe they are illegally without them seeing a judge or receiving a hearing.” And 53% say that “Trump administration is crossing the line” with its deportation efforts, while 45% say they are “doing what is necessary.”
The feeling reflects what Trump’s Latin voters said last month during the focal groups observed by NBC News as part of the 2025 Deciders series, produced by the University of Syracuse and the Commitment and Sagú Research firms.
The majority of swing state voters who participated still supported Trump and their broad actions in deportations, but a handful of participants criticized the generalized deportations of the administration. They said that Trump and the government should prioritize undocumented immigrants who committed additional crimes about those who have followed the rules since they arrived illegally in the country.
“I was going to deport people who were criminals and had a history,” said Ruby L., a participant of the focal group that was born in Colombia and lives in Georgia, last month. “But I see that he sports people who work hard and have been in this country. I think I should find a way to help them stay and get a citizenship or something.”
